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An influx of new people into Seattle from Asia and Southeast Asia was one of the changing circumstances ACT wanted to respond to in their programming.

Problem
Believing that theatre should also elevate and connect people to timeless and deeply-affective ideas, ACT wanted their means of building relationships with immigrant communities to involve revered, high art.

Enter the Ramayana, a Hindu epic touching on the tension between love and duty. This story is beloved of many Asian and Southeast Asian cultures.

ACT wanted to stage the Ramayana as a way of reaching out to and incorporating ethnic newcomers into the theatre’s conversation and community. But they knew that to do it right — both the outreach and the production — they would need help.

Solution
ACT assembled a team of Ramayana Ambassadors composed of wise and influentional people from the Asian and Southeast Asian community. Initially, ACT thought the ambassadors would primarily help with marketing, but as the project progressed, they learned to lean on the Ramayana team for more — because it wasn't just about selling tickets.

You can’t go into building an audience from a marketing perspective. It has to be about relationships. - Sheila Daniels, co-director

ACT wanted a real relationship with these communities, and that meant being open to the amabassadors' ideas. So, in addition to relying on the Ramyana ambassadors for targeted marketing and outreach, ACT gave them space to make other significant contributions like:

Offering insight on the Ramayana story to ACT's artistic colloborators. This ultimately informed how ACT staged the play.

Planning and hosting a month of events called the Ramayana Rally, featuring performances by other community artists, a 20-person youth dance ensemble, and various lectures.

Creating meaningful auxiliary programs to complement the Ramayana production, like “Eye On” weeks, a rotating “marketplace” set up in ACT’s lobby displaying a different Asian or Southeast Asian culture each week of Ramayana’s run.

These weren't tasks assigned to the ambassadors to complete. These were ideas the team came up with on their own and executed as true colloborators.

OutcomesThe work that ACT and the Ramayana Ambassadors put into Ramayana paid off in many ways: